2io Singing Valleys 



and the broken particles of endosperm intact. The chewed 

 corn is mixed with more water, and swallowed down a long 

 mechanical gullet. A vigorous stirring-up process brings the 

 germs to the surface of the mass so that they may be skimmed 

 off to be passed on to the machinery which extracts the oil 

 from them. One bushel of shelled corn is estimated to be 

 convertible into one and one-half pounds of corn oil and 

 thirty pounds of starch. 



The yellowish liquor from which the corn germs have been 

 skimmed represents the starch and the gluten in the corn 

 kernels. The gluten carries the protein; it is the nitrogenous, 

 or flesh-building, part of the grain. Some of the protein is to 

 be removed for use as flavoring and food value in the manu- 

 facture of sauces, soups and other edibles which require the 

 taste of beef. Most of it, however, goes back to be mixed with 

 the corn germs after the oil has been extracted from these, 

 to form a gluten cattle feed. 



The separation of the starch from the gluten is done by 

 running the liquid over long, sloping tables. The weight of 

 the starch carries it to the bottom of the troughs, while the 

 lighter gluten flows on. The tailings are run over the tables 

 again and again, until every possible grain of the precious 

 starch has been left on the bottoms. 



This starch is the base of the syrups, dextrins and sugars. 

 Flushed off the tables, it is filtered, then dried. Part of it is 

 milled to be marketed as starch, for laundry, industrial and 

 food uses. Another part goes in water suspension to the 

 sugarhouse. 



There the cornstarch is subjected to an actual digestive 

 process in great bronze tanks. It encounters the three elements 

 of digestion heat, pressure, and hydrochloric acid. Twenty- 

 two minutes in the bronze stomachs turns the starch solution 

 into a liquor which when filtered, refined and evaporated, is 

 glucose, or corn syrup. 



It used to be the fashion to decry glucose. Some writers on 



